His Majesty Design

- Well, what have you got here? Show ... That ak ... Oh, everything is in color! Handsomely.
- Our studio always prepares high-quality samples, Andrey Viktorovich ...
- Yes, yes, that's great. Feels the hand of the designer ...
- Not a designer, if you please, but a designer ...
- Designer? Oh, yes, of course. You forgive me - I do not own the terminology. You know, I am a person far from art ...
- Do not worry, Andrei Viktorovich, because there are professional designers for this! Our studio will help your bank to design your webpage and presentation materials in the same style and, through a flawless design, convey to your customers the corporate culture and mission of the bank ...
- Bank mission? M yes. How would you say this ... We seem to have no mission ...
- It does not matter! This is a figurative expression. Although every self-respecting corporation always formulates its mission ...
- Yes? Well, I don’t know ... Of course, we respect ourselves, but what mission can we have, not the largest bank?
- Become a big bank?
- Hmmm ... Let's about the corporate mission - to the president of the bank. I am a simple person, we just make money here ...
“No money to make, no, this is not good for a mission, perhaps ...”
- Of course, you know better. Although most of us come here to work for this ... Well, let's go back to your samples. The idea of ​​making our website on the Internet more worthy, I like. Some clients complained that they could hardly find the necessary information there ...
- Andrey Viktorovich, we only have an order for design. We are not responsible for the structure and content ...
- Yes? And I got the impression ...
- However, if you include the content task in the order, we are ready to undertake that ...
- Yeah. By content, it means ... For an additional fee, of course?
- Of course.
- Ok, we will discuss later. What confuses me a little is the color solution that you offer ... Here is the pink background ... And here is too much blue ...
- What do you mean, Andrei Viktorovich?
- No, nothing special. It's just like that ... frivolously, or something ...
- According to the latest American studies, it is this color combination that ensures maximum susceptibility to the information being placed.
- Yes, but we are the bank all the same. And it looks like the Barbie dolls home page ...
- Well, you offend, Andrey Viktorovich! We still have experienced specialists. We practice a systematic professional approach. Analysts studied the features of your image and corporate style. The task designer, on the basis of their conclusion, prepared a corresponding task for the artists. And as the art director of your project, I already control the entire production ...
- Production ... Yeah. It's all beautiful, but these colors ...
- Andrey Viktorovich, honestly, you are not the first client to join us in creative discussions! Do you know how hard it is to be a designer who knows how best, but must convince the customer of this? In all other professions, clients are used to believing a professional for some reason, but the designer still has to prove to the customer that it’s better for him to abandon his stereotypes and listen to the opinion of someone who understands design ...
- No, I'm ready to listen ...
- Design is, by the way, a science, Andrey Viktorovich! The science! It is all the more important because in creative matters, how many people have so many opinions. But it is necessary to proceed from the task! So what task have you set for us?
- Task? Yes so ... Make our website on the Internet at a decent level. All advertising printing put in order. In short, to no worse than the rest ...
- Exactly! "No worse!" And it should be better, Andrei Viktorovich, better than the rest! More noticeable, bolder, more progressive! To make your style recognizable and unique!
“It's all great, but why pink with blue?”
- Do you know what Artemy Lebedev said in his time? Although that I am ... You probably do not know him?
- I have no idea. Russian philosopher of the last century?
- Uh ... No, but the thought you gave interesting ... Well, it does not matter. It’s amazing how often customers were willing to pay us extra so that we could only make things worse - by following their additional wishes ... And His Majesty Design does not tolerate petty compromises ...
- How, sorry? His Majesty Design?
- Yes, precisely “his majesty.” The right design can turn the world around!
- You probably wanted to say “Beauty will save the world” ...
- Design is one of the hypostases of beauty. You understand, Andrei Viktorovich, we as professionals stand guard over your interests. We know better what you need, no matter how challenging it sounds ...
- It really sounds defiant. About the fact that "the client is always right," you have not heard?
- I heard, of course. But in our case the client is usually not right. Believe me!
- Oh well. Let me see the samples all the same now, and we ... Wait a minute! What is this picture?
- What? This? This is for the design of the client asset management services page ...
- Puppeteer and this ugly harlequin on strings? Are you kidding me?
- Andrei Viktorovich, do not get excited ... I set the task for artists to produce non-standard, fresh ideas ...
- Can you imagine the feelings of a client when I give him such an advertisement of our trust management? Do your artists even imagine what trust management is?
- Understand, all these businessmen, shaking hands, and financial charts with trading terminals - this is all trivial! Dead creative. Your images should be memorable!
- Yeah! A naive client who is manipulated by a cunning puppeteer banker will be remembered by many ...
- Well, maybe the image needs a little refinement ...
- And what's that? Stop! What I do not understand ...
- Where? Where?
- Is that sperm?
“Um ... yes. But here lies the concept ...
- Sperm ?!
- Maybe a little bold, but here lies the idea of ​​developing the project from the very beginning ...
- Sperm ?!
- And here further ...
- What the hell is this?
- Fertilized egg ...
- Wow…
- And here is the embryo, and here is the baby ... An original and memorable concept, by the way! The fact that she is shocking should, on the contrary, help to draw attention to the project management process in your bank. How ideas are born ...
- Judging by this concept, probably in the process of sexual intercourse between employees ...
- Well, you say too, Andrey Viktorovich! Of course, you can slightly modify ...
“Where are you from?”
- What? What?
- Where did you get this photo?
- Oh, this is for the page "Bank with a human face"! Bank management, so to speak, in an informal setting ...
- We are all drunk here!
“But you have such living faces here ...”
- Drunk faces, do you want to say?
- No, what are you ...
- So! And how much were you going to request from us for this set of jokes?
“I object to such characteristics ...”
- How many, I ask?
- Nineteen thousand three hundred.
- What?
- Well, not rubles, hehe. Dollars. Um ... excluding VAT.
- Nineteen thousand three hundred dollars excluding VAT?
- Absolutely. Although, if you turn on the content task, the amount will increase somewhat ...
- Get out!
- I'm sorry, what?..
- The meeting is over! Negotiations are over! Creatives fucking ...
- But let me ...
- What am I, vaguely expressed? I ask you to make happy with your design and fresh concepts of some of our competitor! His Majesty Design! You are a self-confident amateur, not a professional!
“None of our clients allowed themselves to judge so ...”
- Shut up! Take your samples and you can be free!
- Wait, Andrei Viktorovich ... Why so react? We can take into account all your wishes ...
- I don’t want to listen to all this nonsense about professional designers ...
- No more words, Andrei Viktorovich!

* * *

... They drew our bank a new web site and booklets. No pink blue tones. No sperm and puppeteers. Simple, decorous and noble for two thousand dollars, including VAT. His Majesty Design ... Ha! If this art director really believed what he was saying and left my office with his head held high, slamming the door, I could have changed my mind. I love the ideological. But he turned out to be a real professional who is afraid of losing a client.
I am also a professional and I understand him perfectly.
')
(c) from the book of Bank secrecy by Shen Bekasov